Unlike a

Google search, Memex can search not only for text but also for images

and latitude/longitude coordinates encoded in photos. It can decipher

numbers that are part of an image, including handwritten numbers in a

photo, a technique traffickers often use to mask their contact

information. It also recognizes photo backgrounds independently of their

subjects, so it can identify pictures of different women that share the

same backdrop, such as a hotel room—a telltale sign of sex trafficking,

experts say.

Also unlike Google, it can look into, and spot

relationships among, not only run-of-the-mill Web pages but online

databases such as those offered by government agencies and within online

forums (the so-called deep Web) and networks like Tor, whose server

addresses are obscured (the so-called dark Web).

Since its

release a year ago, Memex has had notable successes in sex-trafficking

investigations. New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance said Memex

has generated leads in 20 investigations and has been used in eight

trials prosecuted by the county’s sex-trafficking division. In a case

last June, Mr. Vance said, Memex’s ability to search the posting times

of ads that had been taken down helped in a case that resulted in the

sentencing of a trafficker to 50 years to life in prison.